"My fault? Mercy!" she cried, "I wouldn't hev bruk up that dance fur a bushel o' sech ez ye an' Rhodes!" She gave a gurgling laugh of retrospective pleasure.
A moment's silence ensued, while he pushed back his hair to look gloweringly at the half-reclining figure, which, although not moving, had contrived to take on an air of flouting indifference.
"Ye air a mighty small matter," he said, scathingly, "fur me an' Rhodes ter make ourselves sech fools about."
"An' sech big fools!" she cried, with animation. "Whenst I feel obligated ter see I'm a fool, it's sech a comfort ter know I ain't much of a fool."
He said nothing in reply, feeling too clumsy and ponderous to follow the attack with so lithe and elusive an enemy. He did not definitely realize it, but in dropping his aggressions he assumed far more potent weapons.
"O my Lord A'mighty!" he groaned, putting his head in one hand, and covering his eyes as he supported his elbow upon the log behind him; "it don't make much diff'ence whose fault 'tis. I hev ter suffer fur it. I hev ter suffer fur everything. Sufferin' air what I war born fur, I reckon. Leastwise I ain't seen nuthin' else."
Something faintly stirred the trees; it was not the wind, for it did not seem to come again or to pass further. It was as if they were awakening from some subtleties of sleep, unknown to science, that had stilled their pulses. Fragrance was in the air; the great red rose in the grass by the gate was bursting its buds. The rank weeds asserted their identity. Even the wood-pile gave evidence of walnut and hickory and the resinous pine. And still the moon, ever reddening, ever dulling, sank lower, and the stars were brightening in the darkening sky.
Once more he groaned. "I never war cut out for a fighter," he declared. "Whenst I war a leetle bit o' a boy, an' my dad married agin an' brung that everlastin' wild-cat o' a step-mam o' mine home, I war in a mighty notion o' bein' frien'ly—leetle liar—leetle cowardly fox! I knowed what war good fur me, an' which side my bread war buttered on, an' she couldn't beat me hard enough ter make me hit back or sass her. I war fur givin' up an' takin' mild ez a lam' everything she hed a mind ter do ter me. But arter a while I got so ez whenst she beat my leetle brother it made me winge an' winge—she couldn't hurt sech a calloused time-server ez me! An' so I tuk ter hidin' him in the bresh whenst she got mad at him. An' one day whenst she fund him, an' tuk ter larrapin' him, I jes' flew at her, an' I bit her arm 'mos' through. She let Ephraim alone. She war skeered at me. I seen it. An' I tuk ter bitin' arter that like a cur-dog. My dad lemme 'lone. Vis'tors ez kem ter the house war warned off'n me. I begun ter git my growth. I hed an arm ez growed so it could lam a man like a sledge-hammer; it kep' all the boys an' everybody else off'n Ephraim, ez never war a fighter, an' let him git some growth, an hold up his head, an' try ter do like folks."
He had dropped his hand and was staring at her with surprised eyes. She was leaning forward, the golden moonlight still on her face. Her finely cut lips were smiling. She held out, with an air of gay, mysterious confidence, a tiny object between her finger and thumb.
"'Hold fast what I give ye,'" she quoted, with a low, gurgling triumphant laugh.